EAST COAST SHIPPING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17949, 29 November 1932, Page 4

EAST COAST SHIPPING

SOUTH IS. PASSENGER RUN

‘NOT A BUSINESS PROPOSITION’

VIEWS OF GISBORNE TRADERS

While the re-institution of a shipping service for passengers and freight on the Last Coast of New Zealand, connecting Dunedin and Auckland, is regarded as a most desirable development, Gisborne trading interests do not consider that the resumption of the service suspended some years ago by the Union Steam Shi]i Company would be justified in the face of the present costs of operation. The topic was a live one to-day in business circles, following the publication of the views of a Dunedin business man, Mr. M. C. Campbell, who held that the re-establishment of the steamer service would be a payable proposition for the summer months at least. “T he best days in the East Coast service passed when the Main Trunk railway connected Auckland and Wellington in pre-war days.” commented cue Gisborne trader who is interested in shipments of produce from the South Island. .“In those days there was a constant flow of trade backwards and forwards on the coast, and Gisborne bad ;> most convenient schedule of steamer .sailings every week, with similar facilities for passenger and freight conveyance. When the Main Trunk lino was connected up, the through passenger service by steamer ceased abruptly, and eventually the Gisborne trade became tlie only link left in what was previously a Dominion-long chain of passenger traffic. “When the Union Company was running the Tfiknpitna on this coast, linking Auckland, Gisborne and Napier, the hade was still fairly substantial, but -t was stated then that the traffic did not warrant continuing the facilities given by the vessel, and gradually the passenger trade vanished with'the opening up of road connection and the development of the motor services. I doubt whether it would be possible to win back the passenger trade from Ihe roads, and certainly it would not pay any steamship company to conduct such a service coastwise with the older type of passenger-and-freight steamer.” Tiio business man pointed out that there would be periods when people might welcome the chance to travel to Auckland or Napier by steamer, saving time and enjoying a comparatively comfortable journey. The costs of the service could hardly be met, however, by tlie returns <>f selected periods of fine weather, and as an economic proposition the scheme would hardly appeal io any of the steamship companies. Hardened travellers might prefer the boat service between Gisborne and Napier at any time, rough or smooth, hut the service could not subsist on their patronage, and it would be useless to put on the run a vessel such as ihe old Wainui, with only limited passenger accommodation and high costs of operation militating against its success right from the start. Another point to he considered was that Gisborne, even after the expenditure of over C805.C00 on harbor improvements, could not berth a vessel of substantial tonnage without a certain elaborateness of prepara (ion. In the circumstances, tho district traffic would not be freed from the old bogey of a roadstead transhipment from tender to steamer. This was one of the handicaps which eventually knocked the coastwise passenger traffic on ihe head in the old days, he pointed: cut.

There was no information to be gained in shipping circles as to the possibility of a renewal of the coast, service. The Union Steam Ship Company’s manager. Air. 11. V. Bell, intimated that he had heard nothing of the proposal through official channels, while another shipping representative commented that the matter was disposed of by the axiom that “there are more bad sailors than good.”